Hello January

WORKSHOP

When I was applying for jobs in Korea, I decided I wouldn't take a position far from Seoul because I wanted to be part of the Seoul Writers' Workshop, a group that meets once a month or more to critique writing and is a community that encourages written and spoken word. I need that, so I came here.

Yesterday afternoon was the first meeting at Cafe Ohana in Itaewon, a huge foreigner area of Seoul that I believe has the biggest military base in Korea. I was nervous to go because I didn't get to print and make comments for everyone and just felt unprepared. Also my poetry seemed to be heavier than the others' so I wasn't sure how it would be received. But luckily, I was only about 4 minutes late and it worked out well that I didn't bring papers because my laptop came in handy a few times.

Cafe Ohana had pretty good coffee, a long table that we could all sit at together, and the best tiramisu I've ever had, and the barista gave it to us as service because she said we looked like we needed some sugar!

The workshop itself is a little different from what I'm used to. I got shushed a few times, actually, because their process is that the reader reads and is then silent until everyone has given their opinion and take on the poem. That makes sense. It's just not what I'm used to so it took a while to figure out how to be quiet.

I got some really good feedback though from people of all different backgrounds and styles. It was great to read so many different kinds of works too and have a chance to possible help in their improvement. I'm also excited about the new community I'm making. I got to talk with a girl from South Africa (Durban and Capetown, woot woot!) for a while and she's going to start telling me when there are music or art shows around Seoul. I miss that. It's been hard to find things like that so far because I don't seem to know the right people for it. But I'm pretty sure this group will be the right people.

The people who came were really interesting. One man is a Korean poet who has two books published, and this was his first attempt at writing directly in English. Another man - my favorite writer - has had some things published too, I'm pretty sure, and showed us some poems he's been working on for five to ten years, which is so cool to me considering I'm a relatively new writer.


LUNAR NEW YEAR

Five friends and I headed out long before daylight last Saturday morning for Pyeongchang, which you may recognize as the site of the 2018 Winter Olympics. It was Lunar New Year and we a five-day vacation. We were to go skiing, ice fishing with poles, whole-body-in-the-subzero-water bare-hands fishing, hiking to an ice sculpture area, bonfiring, BBQing, and warm waterparking. And we did all of these things except for jumping into the ice water to try and catch some fish like cavemen.

Here are Daniel and me preparing to look amazing on our skis (notice I'm still holding mine).


I was doing pretty well and had made a new friend named Scott on the slopes. It was both of our first day skiing so we stuck together and were improving pretty well. We went for lunch and a mid-day Cass and decided to head back to the slopes for one or two finals runs before we had to go back to the hotel. On the way to the beginning slope we'd been rocking all morning, one of his friend intercepted us, I was immediately introduced to him as the boss, and he convinced us in a frenzy to join him on a different, MUCH higher slope, that he assured us was perfectly beginner. That proved false for me. I fell every fifty feet and tried to follow Caleb's advice of slicing my skis to the side when I want to turn (something he'd seen skiers do, only ever having snowboarded.)


And the following morning:

Ski pole to the face. You're welcome. After this happened, I didn't even bother getting up until the guys all came around to see if I was OK and I just lay there so someone came up on a snowmobile and brought me back down.

This was taken by Nicola in a tent restaurant on the second day of the trip. When I walked in, a man noticed my eye, ran to me with a cold egg, pushed it onto my face, rolled it around roughly and indicated that I should continue to do the same. Not speaking much Korean and him not speaking English, I did what he said because he just kept yelling at me if I didn't. The pleasure I got from this was watching him yell at Daniel when I pointed to him when I assume he asked me what happened. Then he actually apologized when I charaded to him that it was a skiing accident.

This ice tunnel was at the ice festival, where the fishing took place. We also tubed down a hill repeatedly for one of the most fun activities of the trip.